Artist:  Y&T and GPS

Venue:  Rios, Bradford

Date: 26 September 2006  

It’s been some 30 odd years since that fatal day when a young Dave Meneketti and Phil Kenmore met on a basket ball court and started jamming together, who would have thought then that they would go on to conquer the rock world.

Now the two are back in the UK with a new line-up from the one I saw at the Monsters of Rock show a few years back, now with John Nymann on guitars and Mike Vanderhule on drums, together with Meniketti and Kenmore, these four are about to set the UK alight with their guitar fuelled hard rock, but first the opening act GPS.

GPS are a band not devout of stars in their line-up the band consisting of former Asia stars John Payne on bass and vocals, Guthrie Govan on lead guitar, Hurricanes Jay Scheller on drums, and completing the line-up on keyboards, Ryo Okumoto from Spock Beard.

At first hearing that GPS were support for Y&T, I was a little worried if they were the right band for the task, but I was soon eating my words when the band came on stage and opened up with a set made up of pure progressive magic.

With a set consisting of tracks taken from the bands debut album ‘Window To The Soul’, the band set about not only turning me around, but also a vast number of the partisan Y&T crowd.

Firstly the sound was just huge with a huge emphasis on Okumoto’s fine keyboard performance, as he clearly was up for the show 110%, as for the rest of the band.  They really seemed to feed off Ryo’s enthusiasm with Payne and Govan gelling well off each other.

The highlight of their set had to have been the magnificent ‘All My Life’ with its rockier side to the progressive sound, 'Since You’ve Been Gone’ with its dark jazz infusion, ‘Window To The Soul’ with its more heavier edge, and my favourite of the night the quite outstanding ‘New Jerusalem’.

This is a band that I was really impressed with and would not think twice about seeing them again if the chance arrived.  Also I don’t think I was the only one who thought that, as one guy at the bar after their set stated ... “I don’t know who they are, but they sure can play a bit!”.  Excellent stuff!  Great to see the guys come out and hang with the crowd after the show too.

Now on to the main event, by the time Y&T were about to come on stage the venue had filled up considerably and the atmosphere was starting to reach fever pitch by the mainly male dominated audience.

As the band hit the stage the place erupted as Vanderhule got things off with a short drum intro, then Meniketti and rest of them strapped on their guitars and set about the opener ‘Hang Em High’, which I must say never sounded better.

The set continued at a blitzkrieg pace with ‘Don’t Stop Running’ and ‘Dirty Girl’, with Meniketti and Nymann ripping up a storm on both.  With the rest of the band sounding really tight, it was plain from the off that this was going to be one hell of a show.

With such a huge back catalogue to delve into the set was balanced well between the more well know tracks that everyone knew and those tracks that only the diehard fans knew and love.  Songs like ‘Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark’ from the Ten album and of course songs that needed no introduction, such as ‘Meanstreak’ and ‘Bar Room Boogie’.

But it was the classic that most people had come to hear and they got plenty as the set continued, with ‘Winds Of Change’ then it was time for the crowd to really get those heads bobbing as the band went into ‘Midnight In Tokyo’ and ‘Eyes of A Stranger’.

With the end of each song the crowd tried to put together their own set and shouted out their own particular favourite songs, to which Meniketti finally gave into and they played a few lines from ‘Lipstick and Leather’.  Then it was back to the original set list as the band went out all guns blazing for ‘Hurricane’, with Meniketti really showing what a great guitarist he is on this one.  Next up was a song that was instantly recognisable from the first few chords as the classic ‘Rescue Me’, a song that will always take me back to my youth as I’m sure it did for a lot of the crowd out tonight.

Then it was time for Meniketti to really show his metal with Y&T’s own Parisian Walkways the instrumental ‘I’ll Cry For You’.

Next up was a song whose lyrics are as poignant today as they were back in 1984 when it first appeared on In Rock We Trust album, ‘Rock & Roll’s Gonna Save The World’.

Soon it was time for something special, as the band did an outstanding version of ‘I Believe In You’, a track that found the Rio’s crowd in fine voice as the joined Meniketti on the chorus, much as they did on the next one, the anthemic ‘Forever’ before the band left the stage for the first time.

I’ve been too so many gigs lately where the band are expected to return for an encore and the crowd have been shall I say less than willing to shout for more, but tonight the crowd demanded more as they seemed united as one voice as they hailed the return of their heroes, to which the band gladly obliged.

The encore was itself a bit special as they took time to get their breath back with the gentle number ‘Sail On By’, then it was time to raise the roof off Rio’s as the band went into overdrive as they finished off the night with ‘Black Tiger’.  Very much to the delight of everyone present. 

This rounded off what has been the best Y&T performance I’ve seen for such a long time and this was the first show of the tour so if you’ve got tickets for the rest of the tour your in for a real treat mark my words. 

 

 

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